Lexington class aircraft carrier
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| Lexington class aircraft carrier | |
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| Class Overview | |
| Class Type | Aircraft Carrier |
| Class Name | Lexington |
| Preceded By | Langley-class aircraft carrier |
| Succeded By | Ranger-class aircraft carrier |
| Ships of the Class: | Lexington, Saratoga |
The Lexington class aircraft carriers were the first operational aircraft carriers in the United States Navy (USS Langley was a strictly developmental ship which only served for a short time as an active fleet unit before being converted to a seaplane tender AV-3). The ships were laid down and partly built as battlecruisers before being converted to carriers while under construction. Saratoga, the third ship, was more complete than the second ship, Constellation, when the vessels were under consideration for conversion, so Saratoga was continued and Constellation was scrapped. If completed as battlecruisers, the ships would have been armed with eight 16" guns and 16 6" guns, though for commonality's sake the secondary battery probably would have been changed to 5"/38 guns before installation. Successful wide-scale operations with these ships, compared to the very limited operations possible with the much smaller USS Ranger convinced the Navy that larger carriers were more effective than smaller ones, a trend which has continued through the years; the modern day Nimitz class supercarriers are a hundred percent larger than the Midway class ships of fifty years ago.
The name source for the battlecruisers was famous past ships of the U.S. Navy, which continued to be the name source for aircraft carriers until CV-66 USS America. CV-67 John F. Kennedy started a trend of naming carriers for political figures, a trend which continues as of this writing. The only exceptions prior to John F. Kennedy were CV-42 USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (named for the late president), CV-38 USS Shangri-La (named for the mythical city), CVL-49 USS Wright (named for the Wright Brothers), CV-59 Forrestal (named for James V. Forrestal) and CV-63 Kitty Hawk (again named in honor of the first flight).
The Lexington class carriers were the largest aircraft carriers in the fleet until the late-war Midway-class carriers, and had the largest hangar decks in the world until the early-50s Forrestal-class supercarriers.
There were two Lexington-class carriers: CV-2 USS Lexington (also called "Lady Lex") and CV-3 USS Saratoga (also called "Sister Sara"). Lady Lex was sunk in the Battle of Coral Sea in 1942; Saratoga survived to be disposed of in the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests after the war.
| Lexington-class aircraft carrier |
| Lexington | Saratoga |
| Lexington-class battlecruisers |
| Constellation | Ranger | Constitution | United States |
| List of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy |